


...And the Second-Hand Sins

by GrumpyJenn



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Implied Mind Rape, Spoilers for ...And the Image of Image
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5388014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place immediately following ...And the Image of Image</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Struckk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Struckk/gifts), [AerynB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerynB/gifts), [luladannys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luladannys/gifts).



“Let ‘er sleep it off, mate; the tacos didn’t help ‘er any…”

Jake agreed with the young thief, but Cassie had looked so miserable and almost frail in the pink robe, more tired than they’d ever seen her before… and they’d seen her plenty tired. And sick.

And dying.

He just wanted to make sure she was okay. “Gonna go check on her,” he mumbled in Jones’ direction, and took off to find Cassie.

Rounding a corner of a shelf in  a small reading room in the Annex, he came across Cassandra, out cold and curled up on a sofa, a copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ on the floor. She snored softly, and Jake went to pick up the book and shelve it. “Didn’t y’have enough of the real thing, darlin’?” He crouched to get the book and realized that the sound wasn’t a snore after all, but a low exhalation, almost a moan. And it didn’t sound happy.

“Cassie?” Jake reached out to smooth the tumbled curls off her forehead, but when his fingers touched her skin, Cassie bolted upright, shrieking. When she spotted him sitting where she’d knocked him onto the floor, she shut her eyes tight and curled into a little ball in the corner of the couch.

“No, no no no no… no, not real, the patterns, they’re gone, I need can’t see the patterns, no. NO!”

Shocked as he was, it took Jake a moment to collect his wits. _Don’t wanna scare her more,_ he thought, _but I need help_. He took a few steps to the open door and bellowed for the rest of the team, then turned back to the trembling woman on the couch. She had quieted a bit, back to just frightened little moans, but she was rocking slightly and curled in on herself, looking for all the world like a child with a nightmare. _Poor baby,_ Jake thought, _not used to the drink_. He reached out very slowly this time, and although Cassie flinched when he touched her, she allowed him to pull her into his lap and settle the two of them on the couch.

“There y’go, honey, I got you…” Jacob kept whispering it into her hair as he stroked it, trying to soothe Cassie. She was strung tighter than a bowstring and shaking like a leaf, and Jake looked up in relief when Baird and Jones came tearing into the room, followed by Jenkins at a much more decorous pace.

“Christ, Stone, whad’ja do to ‘er?”

“Shut up, Jones. I think she had a hangover-induced nightmare.”

Ezekiel’s expression grew serious, which told Jake that the situation was pretty damn dire. “Think it’s more than that, mate,” he said, and Jenkins and Baird nodded.

“What?” Jake said it tensely, then deliberately gentled his tone as he felt Cassie flinch. “What’re you sayin’, Jones?”

Jenkins cleared his throat. “I believe Mr. Jones is saying that Miss Cillian is still under Dorian Gray’s influence… somehow.”

“Awesome,” Baird said.


	2. Chapter 2

_He must hate me._  
_They must all hate me._  
 _The weak one, the traitor._

_My fault, my fault, **my** fault… _

But Jacob was holding her, and he didn’t seem mad, just worried, and…

No, if he knew, he’d hate her. All the things she’d done, the feelings she’d had, what if she’d done it on purpose, what if Eve knew, what if…

 _What if, what if, what if_ …  

Too much swirling around inside her, the guilt was huge, and it wasn’t fun anymore like it had been, and they’d hate her, they’d all hate her…

“Oh, _Cassandra_ …”  

It was a memory, a caring voice, like an uncle or even a fa… no. Not like a father, like an uncle then, and… he sounded so disappointed, they always did, didn’t they? Everyone was disappointed in her, and there must be a reason but she couldn’t seem to stop feeling bad things, doing awful things, the Apple must have _gloried_ in her, so innocent and sweet on the outside, so bad inside…

Jake was still holding her though, and even Mr. Jenkins sounded concerned and Cassie laughed wildly inside her head where she was safe, where they couldn’t see the bad things, because if Mr. Jenkins sounded concerned and Ezekiel sounded serious, then there must – _she_ must – be something very bad, very bad, very bad.

But she couldn’t tell, she couldn’t _see_ , and the patterns weren’t coming together and that meant she’d lost what little value she had to the team.

Right. The team.

The people she’d… no! _I didn’t mean it, I didn’t, no, no, no, no, **no**! Family, the only family since… I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, so sorry…_

“What?” She heard it but she didn’t understand it, the patterns were gone, so many patterns lost, she was useless, hopeless, a traitor, a… Cassie flinched away from the sound, and it got gentler, kinder, more like the Jake she knew. She tried hard to concentrate on the sounds they were making, but the swirling scents and stair-steps of sound had no meaning, the patterns were gone, gone, gone, gone…

She was lost in a roaring darkness, tasting spirals, and then there was a bright spark of copper in the center of her vision. A hissing snake of the same copper appeared, and Cassie grabbed at it, trying to hold it, but it slithered out of her grasp.

And down she went into the darkness and the shame and the grief, _let me go, just let me go, why, I need, please just let me go…_

Part of her – a very small part – was aware of warm hard muscles against her cheek, and arms holding her as though she were a child. Of disconnected words and names that had no meaning.

Of the scent of tacos.

But most of her ( _Asclepius…Dorian Gray… Miss Cillian… Awesome_ ) just wanted to be left alone.

_Why bother, when you all must hate me? I can’t do it anymore, please just let me sleep._

_Please_ …

 _Please_ …

 _Please_ …


	3. Chapter 3

_They have got to be kidding me_ , Eve Baird thought, and yanked her attention back to Jenkins, who was blathering on about the Rod of Something and instructing Jones on where exactly to find it in the Library. Dammit, she was supposed to be their Guardian. He should really run it through her rather than snapping out orders. But then this was the sort of situation where he knew best, and Baird knew when to shut up and use her resources wisely. So she looked around, saw that Stone was still occupied with Cassandra, and that’s when she realized why she was so sensitive about it.

 _She_ was supposed to be their Guardian.

And right now she couldn’t be, not for Cassandra, who was shaking like a leaf but otherwise seemed to be unconscious.

Eve hated feeling helpless. It was why she and Flynn had… _no_ , she thought, _now is not the time_.

Now is the time to help Cassandra.

“What do you need me to do, Jenkins?”

“You could fetch the Phial of Vedic Soma,” Jenkins said.

“Awesome. Point the way.”

 

-+-+-+-

 

When Eve got back with the little bottle, she stopped to take stock of the situation. Cassandra had fallen asleep entirely, the shivers gone. Jones was leaning on a big stick with something wound around it; that must be the Rod of Something that Jenkins had sent him after. Jenkins was explaining something in a soft tone to Stone, who was focused on the sleeping woman in his lap, arms curved protectively around her. He looked up at Eve’s approach.

“That it?” His voice was even more gravelly than usual, Eve noted, and it was starting to get that country twang that meant he was very upset by something.

Jenkins nodded. “We will use the Rod of Asclepius to see if I can determine what is happening in Cassandra’s mind, whether she can emerge under her own power or whether…” He trailed off.

“Whether someone has t’go in after her, yeah, mate?”

As usual, Jones was right on the money. Eve hoped that this was an aspect of Guardianship she could skip; the idea of encountering that slimeball Dorian Gray in there gave her the shivers.

Hell, he’d given her the shivers even leering at her _through_ Cassandra; Eve would really rather not experience that firsthand.

Jenkins waved the Rod in Cassandra’s direction, and closed his eyes. “Can you fix what’s wrong with her?” Ezekiel asked in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

“The Rod is a diagnostic tool, nothing more. Repair, well… that is what the Vedic Soma is for. With it, one can go in and speak with her wherever she has retreated inside her mind.” Opening his eyes, he fixed Eve with one of his more unnerving stares. “It seems that is what she has done; she has somehow retreated to a place of… safety. I regret to inform you, Guardian, that this is not something you can do for her. She needs someone with a closer connection to her.”

“Right,” Stone said, shifting Cassandra in his lap. “She needs me.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

“You will have to find a door or a portal in the ‘landscape’ of her mind,” Jenkins was saying, but Jake only had half his mind on the old man’s words. He was too busy thinking about how he wanted to get this done and over, so he held up a hand.

“Got it. How do we do it?”

“One drop on your tongue as you are touching Miss Cillian… her temples would probably be best.”

“Right,” Jake said, and shifted Cassie on his lap so he could reach her temples easily, and gave a heavy sigh before sticking out his tongue for the drop of liquid from the Phial.

It tasted sweet, and a little bit salty, which surprised Jake; he’d expected it to taste like medicine.

That was the last coherent thought he had for awhile, because suddenly there was… nothing. Nothing but swirling sounds and colors he could taste and Christ, if this was what it was like for her all the time he couldn’t see how she was sane at _all_.

And then he opened eyes he didn’t remember closing.

He was in a room. It looked like a child’s bedroom, maybe, but a bare one, as though the resident hadn’t been here for a long time. There were dusty but otherwise empty shelves, and a TV that looked like it was an afterthought; the table it was on didn’t match the rest of the furniture.

“I can’t find it, _them_ , they’re not _here_ ,” came Cassandra’s voice out of nowhere, and Jake turned.

It _was_ Cassie, he was sure of that. But a much younger Cassie, one with very short red hair, a younger and rounder face, a shorter, slighter girl than the woman he knew. She looked terribly lonely and afraid and devastated all at once. But her eyes were blank with what Jake supposed was shock. He wondered what the room was all about; maybe it was a place she had constructed in her mind to tray and make some sense out of what was happening to her.

Best to talk to her rather than to speculate.

“Cassie?”

“No!” Cassie shouted. “I won’t go back for more tests!”

Oh, shit. This must be her mind’s version of the day she got out of the hospital the first time, came home to an empty room because her parents didn’t know what to do with her now that she wasn’t their super genius anymore.

“I thought I was safe,” she whispered, but then her voice started rising toward what in normal circumstances Jake would call hysteria. But it wasn’t that simple. “I thought I would be safe here, but it’s all gone, the trophies and the prizes and _me_. _I’m_ gone!” She sat down on the bed, scooted to the corner, and brought her knees up; wild-eyed, she stared at him over the top of them.

Jake felt himself choke up, and deliberately made his voice as gentle as possible. “I’m not here to take you for more tests, Cassie. I just want to talk with you. Can we do that?” He held out one hand.

She didn’t take it.

“Come on, darlin’. I won’t hurt you,” Jake said, and slowly inched forward, watching her watch him.


	5. Chapter 5

All it took was one blink of Jake’s eyes and suddenly the girl huddled in the corner was the woman he knew. “Cass?”

She didn’t move anything but her eyes, but somehow her expression was no longer scared or sad or even tired; it was just _blank_ , as though she wasn’t really here.

And it broke Jake’s heart.

“Cassie? Come on, darlin’. It’s time to go.”

“No.” The word was without inflection, as numb and blank as her face, and Jake swallowed hard. He had to get her out of this prison of her own mind, out where they could take care of her. Out with her… well, her family. They – the Librarians – they were her family now, and they wanted her back.

 _He_ wanted her back.

“Please, Cassie. We need you. _I_ need you.”

“I have a useful talent,” Cassandra said in that unnervingly numb and emotionless voice. “But it’s not worth the trouble I cause. I—“

She likely would have continued, but Jake found himself cutting her off. He knelt on the bed in front of her and took her face in his hands. _So delicate,_ he thought, _so easily bruised._ “That’s not true. Cass, you’re more than just the math talent. You know that. And you ain’t all that much trouble.” He tried to put a smile into his voice, but knew he failed at it; his throat hurt from the lump in it. “You sure ain’t as much trouble as Jones, and we keep him around, right?”

“He doesn’t hurt people,” Cassandra said simply, in that same damn monotone. “I do.”

“You don’t,” Jake said automatically, because she didn’t. She had been scrupulously careful about that since the very first adventure, with the Crown and the… _oh_.

Well, shit.

“Cassie,” he said, and tipped her chin up off her knees so he could look into the blue eyes. “Cass… I was… well, I was wrong. Maybe not wrong to distrust you at first; we hardly knew each other.” Was that a flicker of something deep in the blue? “But I was wrong to tell you that you couldn’t earn it back. I—”

“Stop it!” Well, _there_ was a reaction. “You don’t know, you _can’t_ know! There are horrible, awful things, I scared Eve just today, and I almost destroyed a city, and I… I…” She wrenched away from him and then they were standing in a room full of odd-looking computers.

One that Jake recognized.

“Cassie…” _Oh, God,_ Jake thought, _she’s been carryin’ that around all these months?_ “Cass, that wasn’t your fault, any more’n the Apple was.”

“I killed her.” It was a horrified whisper.

“You did not.”

“I did. I should have seen the patterns, the variables. It’s what I _do_ , I should have seen…”

“No.” Jacob took her hand, hauled her in for a hug.  She stood stiffly against him. “You’re only human, special math talent or no special math talent. No-one expects you to be infallible.” She wasn’t buying it, he could see that, so Jake sighed.

He’d have to use that guilt she carried around to get them both out of here.


	6. Chapter 6

When Jacob released her, Cassandra wanted to cry at the loss. But she didn’t, and in fact didn’t even make eye contact until he sat in a chair and folded his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m settlin’ in ‘til you’re ready to go.”

“You can’t _stay_!” _If you stay you’ll be trapped, it’s not safe in here for you, I…_ “It’s not safe!”

“I know,” Jake said calmly.

Maybe he did. He looked calm, and he sounded calm, but there was something tense in his posture, like he had just realized something, or like he was scared. Cassie latched onto that thought. Of course he was scared, it would be scary in here for anyone who wasn’t her, so why would he stay?

The only logical reason was that he was staying for her sake, so she wouldn’t be alone. But that didn’t make sense either, because she’d hurt him, hurt all of them, everyone she knew and cared about and… why would he want to stay for her sake?

“Cass?” His voice was quiet, but it broke through the circular thoughts. He moved to take her hand and she felt herself flinch away. _I can’t I can’t I can’t no no no no no!_

“No!” It wasn’t so much a shout as a wail. “ _Please_ leave me alone, I’m safe in here, _you’re_ safe when I’m in here, all of you, please there’s too much you don’t know, I’ve hurt you, I…”

“You haven’t hurt me! Or anyone else, Cassie. What are you talkin’ about?” He looked concerned but he sounded angry, and Cassandra squeezed her eyes tight shut so she wouldn’t see the disgust on his face.

When she opened them, she and Jake were in the club and he was holding her, but this time it was eerily quiet. Just the sniffling sounds she made as she wept and the steady beat of Jake’s heart against her ear.

And the soft sound of his voice as he murmured over and over into her hair. “Not your fault, honey, none of it was, the rat bastard _made_ you believe it, I promise it’s not your fault, come with me darlin’ and we’ll take care of you, I got you, you’re safe with me…”

Eventually she began to believe it. Jacob ran hot and cold, but he wouldn’t lie to her, she was sure – _almost_ sure – of it.

Slowly Cassandra felt herself relax. Jacob sat down on the… on the bed; they were back in her childhood room but the trophies were there, like they had been when she was young, when she was safe… and drew her down to sit beside him. Keeping one arm around her shoulders, he used his other hand to turn her face toward him. “Better?”

She sniffled but nodded, and found the courage to look into his eyes. If she saw what she thought she might there, it wouldn’t matter what he said; she would stay here until her body died and her with it.

But all she saw in his gaze was a warm little twinkle deep in the blue.

So Cassie stood up and took Jake’s hand, tugging him toward the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Jacob Stone woke from the shared dream with Cassandra – now the real Cassandra – clinging to him and crying, little grateful-sounding sobs of thanks and apology. He didn’t even realize the others were there at first; he was too occupied with assuring her that no apologies or thanks were needed and patting her back awkwardly with one hand.

“She OK, mate?”

The voice finally got through to them both, because Cassie’s head came up off Jake’s chest at the same moment that he looked up at Ezekiel. Then he looked back down at Cassie, who smiled at him.

“Yeah,” Jake said without looking away from the deep blue. “She’s good.”

“I’m good.” She said it softly, and then turned to the rest of them and repeated it, smiling. “I… I’d rather not talk about the details,” she said, shivering a little. Jake’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “But I can if you need me to.”

“We got it covered, honey,” Jake said, and the others nodded. “You go get some real rest.”

“I believe that is a wise decision,” Jenkins stated. “The previous… experience, shall we say? It was not truly restful sleep, I suspect.” He missed Jake giving him a killing look as Cassie shivered again, but then she recovered herself and stood up.

“Thanks,” she whispered, and kissed Jake’s cheek, then went into the next room and pulled the door shut behind her.

Jake let out a shaky breath.

“ _You_ okay, mate?”

“Not really. I…” Jake took a deep breath and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I dunno whether it’s the tumor or just somethin’ about Cassie herself, but Gray, he… dammit, he _hurt_ her.”

“Stone,” Baird began, and then stopped and took a deep breath of her own. “Jake. Are you talking about…?”

“Mental rape,” Ezekiel put in grimly.

Jenkins gave the young man a short nod. “It would seem so. But Mr. Stone has healed her of the… taint that Dorian Gray put into her mind…?” He arched his brows inquiringly, and Jacob knew they’d need details, if for no other reason than to know Cassie’s weak spots.

“Far as I can tell, he took every little mistake she ever made, every time she _thought_ she might’ve made one, stuff she wasn’t responsible for, or even if someone just looked at her funny…  Baird, she said she had scared you today, and she felt guilty for Mabel, and…” Jake was well and truly angry now, thinking about what the bastard had done to her. “He took all those things, and he magnified the negative feelings  and tied them up with a big fat bow and _forced_ her to believe that they were all her fault. Like I said, I don’t know if it was the tumor or that she’s just basically…”

“Innocent,” Eve said, looking sick.

“…But by the time he was done with her, she truly believed that she was worthless, dangerous to the rest of us, not worth the trouble, and I…” Jake choked, then recovered. “If he wasn’t already dead I’d kill him myself. With my bare hands.”

“I’d help,” Ezekiel said fiercely, and Eve nodded. Even Jenkins looked ready to do violence.

“How did you convince her it wasn’t true?”

“I just… I just kept telling her it wasn’t her fault. Over and over again. And finally she believed me.”

“Then that’s what we do,” Eve said. “We just tell her over and over whenever she needs it.” And the others nodded in solemn agreement.

And none of them – not even Jenkins – noticed Cassie near the slightly open door, her face shining with relief.


End file.
